ISSUES
RELATED TO ADMINISTRATIVE DECENTRALISATION AND ADMINISTERING
OF DECENTRALISATION

LESSONS
FROM THE KERALA EXPERIENCE

Originally Presented
at the Workshop on Decentralisation organized by the
Institute for Social and Economic Change at Bangalore
on 31st May and 1st June, 2001.

I.
Background

1. When
to decentralize? A good time to decentralize seems
to be when a new government takes over. In the case
of Kerala it was a new government, which transferred
functions and staff in 1995, and another new government
transferred financial resources and launched the People's
Plan Campaign in 1996. Also a favourable point of
time for decentralisation would be when there is a
change-over from one Plan period to another Plan period.
This is because the natural step-up in resource allocation
can be diverted to local governments without facing
much resistance. Kerala's decision to earmark about
35% of its Plan resources was facilitated by the fact
that the launching of the 9th Five Year
Plan in 1997 had resulted in significant increase
in Plan size.

2.
How to decentralize? Traditional wisdom calls for
capacity building of local governments and then giving
power to them in degrees to match the improvements
in capacity. But real and effective decentralisation
probably calls for a big bang approach - functions,
powers and resources are transferred at one go. If
decentralisation is effected in one fell blow the
suddenness would stun potential dissenters into silent
acceptance; before people realize what they have lost,
decentralization would have become a fait accompli.
The 'reversals' - of giving responsibility and then
building capacity, of giving powers and then creating
procedures and systems, of giving funds and then setting
up umpiring systems - help in another way. If government
transfers a lot of responsibilities and funds considerable
pressure would build on government from various sides
to ensure that the responsibilities are carried out
effectively and the funds are utilized properly. It
would then become Government's responsibility to ensure
that decentralization works.

3.
Need for a clear vision. The first and the most critical
impulse to start off decentralization is the political
decision - and that too a decision based on a vision
about decentralization with respect to why it is required,
what it is about, how far it should go, what it should
achieve etc. Once this vision is clear, the administrative
aspects become easier. In other words there should
be a well-articulated decentralization policy.

4.
Nature of decentralization. It would seem that political
decentralization, and that too, a kind of democratic
decentralization with accent on people's participation,
is more sustainable than administrative decentralization.
Power should flow from both the political executive
and the administrative executive to the local governments,
and through the local governments to the people. It
is the downward transfer of power rather than the
sideways transfer of power from officials to elected
bodies that is more important. Also there is need
for a thorough understanding and consensus on what
power means - not just arbitrary kind of "power over"
but more of a legitimate motivational "power to".
Insistence on due process while local governments
take decisions is a sine qua non of democratic
decentralization - to avoid possibilities of whimsical,
arbitrary and partisan exercise of powers.

II.
Roles and Functions of Local Governments.

(1)
Defining the functional domain.

This
is a very difficult activity and it is totally dependent
on the political vision of decentralisation. Also
the size of the local government particularly that
of the Village Panchayat is a critical factor in assigning
its functions. Most of the State legislations give
more or less the same functions to all the three tiers
of local governments. It would be a healthy practice
if a legislative definition of the functional domain
is done with as much precision as possible. (The functions
assigned to local governments in Kerala are delineated
in Annexure 1) But this is a rather difficult task.
Kerala found that it is easier to define the functions
in the management of institutions, creation of infrastructure
and provision of services but when it came to the
question of defining the functional areas in sectors
like agriculture and industries there is bound to
be certain overlaps, and only based on several years
experience can the comparative advantage of each tier
in performing various functions would be known clearly.
Thus a process approach is called for in demarcating
the functions of different tiers of local government
as also the role of the State Government in such development
areas.

(2)
Role definition

Within
their functional areas, local governments would have
to perform various roles and one can see a range rather
than discrete role types. Yet it is possible to identify
certain broad types within this gamut:-

(i)
Informer - just providing information to government

(ii)
Consultant - providing advise and opinion to government

(iii)
Agent - carrying out things on behalf of government
without any real decision making

(iv)
Manager - managing institutions and services on behalf
of the government with the power to take decisions
necessary for management.

(v)
Partner - doing part of a development programme with
government doing the remaining portion.

(vi)
Actor - playing the role of an autonomous agency deciding
priorities and resource allocation by itself.

It should
be possible for government to define the role range
in each of the areas assigned to local governments.

(3)
Inter-tier linkages.

In the
case of rural local governments the question of inter-tier
linkages is very important. It may not be proper to
allow one tier control over the tier below. At the
same time linkages would have to be provided for,
to enable complementarities and performance of higher
order functions. One direct way of doing it is to
make the heads of lower tier local governments ex-officio
members of the higher tier. This can be reinforced
through formal consultative processes. A still more
difficult method would be to design the development
planning process in such a way that linkages get taken
care of through a sequential multi-level planning
exercises.

(4)
Freedom and its limits.

For
each function and each kind of activity the freedom
of local governments as well as the limits to the
freedom need to be indicated. This is best done through
a process of experimentation followed by consultation
with local governments to reach a consensus. Such
an exercise was undertaken by Kerala when it was found
that local governments were giving abnormally high
subsidies to individual beneficiaries of various schemes.

(5)
Legislative entitlements.

As far
as practicable all that has been mentioned above may
be put in the form of an Act so that they have the
best stamp of approval - that is the legislative sanction.

Another
point of relevance is that there are several legislations
related to subjects handled by local governments like
those dealing with water supply, irrigation, land
development, fisheries etc., and those having a bearing
on local government like land acquisition, land conservancy,
land assignment etc. Amendments to such allied Acts
would be justified to ensure that local governments
are not just creatures of one or two Acts but have
legal position and space in all legislations having
something to do with their functions. This would make
the local governments a clearly recognized tier in
government. Kerala has amended about 35 Acts in pursuit
of this idea.

To protect
the future of local governments a farsighted suggestion
has been made in Kerala. Now, every Bill when it is
presented to the Legislature is accompanied by a financial
memorandum and a memorandum on delegation of powers,
so that the legislature knows that it has the power
to legislate on the subject and what the financial
implications would be. On this analogy a third memorandum
dealing with possible local government implications
needs to be introduced. This would help the legislature
to take a balanced view and take precautions against
powers devolved by one law being taken away by another
law through general "notwithstanding" clauses.

(6)
Need for appropriate administrative operating systems.

Development
programmes and development administration run essentially
on the basis of executive instructions which constitute
the flesh and blood of administration with the Acts
providing only the skeletal framework and form. Therefore
any number of legal provisions and rules would remain
on paper if they are not followed up with clear-cut
administrative instructions in the form of Government
Orders, Circulars, Manuals etc.

It would
not be appropriate if the existing administrative
systems and executive orders are just transplanted
on to local governments. The deep structure of such
instructions is oriented towards centralised governance
and is tailored for hierarchy; eg., procurement instructions,
accountability systems, reporting systems etc. These
need to be harmonized to local government conditions
without sacrificing accountability or efficiency.

In the
context of the early stages of decentralisation there
would be an advisory role for the State Government.
Unfortunately in administration, advices cannot be
conveyed in their true spirit; either guidance ends
up as restrictive or it is taken too lightly interpreting
it as non-mandatory. To avoid this, advisory circulars
and guidelines have to be exhaustive and precise and
they should be related clearly to a law, rule or order;
as far as possible they should indicate what has to
be followed implicitly and what could be flexibly
adapted by the user.

Kerala
has embarked on the exercise of fundamentally revamping
the office management as well as financial management
systems of local governments. Since this would take
time, the State has been following an interesting
strategy by framing experimental new instructions
on various procedures and systems, learning from their
application and attempting to upgrade them based on
experience and learning from best practices elsewhere.
An innovate suggestion under consideration is to free
selected outstanding local governments from all rules
and procedures, allow them to act according to their
best judgment, document every step and then work backwards
to unravel and integrate the process. Kerala is particular
that the extremely rare opportunity for creating the
state of-the-art administrative operating systems
should be put to the best use.

III.
Transfer of Resources.

i)
Human Resources.

Often
one comes across vague conceptualization of local
governments particularly Village Panchayats as "doers",
but actually they should be the 'deciders' and the
'doers' should be personnel under their control. Expecting
local governments to do functions without assigning
at least the staff who were hitherto performing those
functions would be futile. Transfer of staff to local
governments is a very tricky issue. There would be
a lot of natural resistance by employees to move on
to control by elected bodies particularly the lower
tiers. Some of the reasons for the staff being reluctant
to work under local governments are -

a) Uncertainty
about service conditions

b) Problems
regarding payment of salaries due to unsound financial
position

c) Fear
of whimsical political decisions

d) Probable
loss of promotion chances due to smallness of the
unit of employment

e) Reluctance
to move to distant areas

f) Ego
problems in relationship with elected representatives,
some of whom could be semi-literate.

The
way Kerala has handled these problems in spite of
its highly unionized staff structure is worth looking
into. The salient features are summarized below:

i) The
principle of work and worker going together was enunciated.
This enabled the government to transfer institutions
and offices along with staff to the local governments.
(The institutions, offices and posts transferred to
local governments in Kerala are listed in Annexure
II). Also, it was followed up by determining surplus
staff both professional and ministerial in development
departments at the State, regional and district levels
and transferring them to local governments. This redeployment
process is currently under way whereby about 1200
clerical staff will go to local governments with each
of the 991 Village Panchayats getting one clerk. Similarly
about 200 large Village Panchayats would get one Assistant
Engineer and for the remaining Village Panchayats
two of them will share an Assistant Engineer; all
Block Panchayats will get an Assistant Executive Engineer.

ii)
The cadre of the staff transferred is not disturbed.
This prevents promotion chances being affected and
facilitates movement of staff from one local government
to another or from local government to government.
In a sense the analogy of All India Service Officers
serving both Central and State Government is relevant.

iii)
The local governments have full managerial and part
disciplinary control over the staff. They can assign
any work to the staff transferred to them related
to their area. They can review their performance and
give the required directions. They are empowered to
impose minor penalties on all staff transferred to
them and, in the case of non-gazetted officers, resort
to suspension whenever warranted.

iv)
A kind of dual control is inevitable. Since the State
Government carries out some of its functions through
the field level staff who have been transferred to
the local governments State control over the staff
becomes necessary. Also, as the cadre is managed by
State, such control is automatic.

v) The
salaries of the staff transferred continue to be paid
for by Government. This would prevent unnecessary
burdening of local governments with the transactional
costs and efforts of salary disbursement and account
keeping.

vi)
Even the own staff of local governments i.e., Village
Panchayats and Municipal bodies who are paid for by
the local government themselves are recruited through
the Public Service Commission and constitute a local
government cadre.

vii)
Based on work-study, staff pattern has been fixed
for different types of local governments. Only government
can create new posts in local governments.

viii)
A decision has been taken to have a published transfer
norm which would ensure that all local governments
including remote and backward ones get the staff on
a rational basis. This would also prevent government
from exercising partisanship in favour of local governments
perceived to be on the government side or discrimination
against other local governments.

ix)
To protect the legitimate professional interest of
staff a code of conduct has been legislated for. This
would help officials in discharging their functions
without fear or favour.

x) In
the case of professional staff where ego conflicts
tend to be more, government has been trying out a
two-pronged approach - one of interfering whenever
there is a complaint and sorting it out through negotiations
and the other of trying to organize joint training
courses for elected heads and the professional staff
to foster mutual understanding and trust.

ii)
Financial resources.

Kerala's
experience has good lessons to offer in this area
of devolution. It is summed up below:

1. Since
the constitutional mandate is to share development
responsibilities with local governments it was felt
that local governments have a legitimate claim on
development funds or Plan funds. So the important
decision to devolve Plan funds to local governments
was taken. One-third of the Plan funds is earmarked
for local governments and around 90% of the Plan funds
is given in a practically untied form to the local
governments to prepare their own schemes and implement
them within certain broad policy framework, which
stipulates that at least 40% of the funds should be
invested in productive sectors, not more than 30%
should be invested on roads (with appropriate variations
for urban local governments) and at least 10% should
be earmarked for gender sensitive schemes and there
is a consensually fixed upper ceiling for subsidies
in different categories of schemes for individual
beneficiaries. In keeping with its philosophy of decentralisation
- to encourage people's participation - Kerala devolved
about 70% of the rural share to Village Panchayats
with the other two tiers equally sharing the remaining
30%

2. The
entire Plan grant is investible. This can be called
"pure money", as it does not carry any staff salaries
or other administrative costs. (Normally at the State
level 20 to 25% of the plan is taken away by such
commitments.)

3. Certain
plan schemes are transferred as such to local governments
both centrally sponsored as well as State schemes.
In general they are called State sponsored schemes
and the guidelines framed for the purpose have to
be followed by the local governments. Such schemes
constitute only about 10% of the Plan Grant-in-aid
given to local governments.

4. All
the Plan grants due to local governments are separately
budgeted in a document given as Annexure IV of the
State Budget. Since it is passed by the Legislature
it is non-divertible for other purposes by the executive.

5. In
addition, traditional non-plan grants continue to
be given as of before. The suggestion to share a percentage
of total tax revenue, instead of giving certain taxes
and grants is under the active consideration of the
government.

6. Institutions
like schools, anganwadis, hospitals, veterinary clinics,
hostels for SCs/STs and agriculture and veterinary
farms have been transferred to different levels of
local governments, along with their staff, for management.
The funds for these institutions other than salary
and, in the case of hospitals medicine and diet charges,
are routed through local governments. Since local
governments control the funds the institutions tend
to gravitate towards them.

7. Every
single rupee devolved to local governments whether
under Plan or other categories is given as per a transparent
formula and there is no room for patronage or partisanship
in allocation of resources to local governments.

8. A
flow of funds procedure has been designed. The funds
flow in four instalments. A local government has to
spend at least 75% of its allocation during a year
failing which the shortfall would be reduced from
the next year's allotment.

9. Ad
hoc accounting and reporting systems have been prescribed.
After analyzing experience so far, formal systems
are to be designed.

IV.
Accountability Issues

Since
substantial funds have been given to the local governments
accountability system acquire special importance.
In addition to the traditional systems new checks
and balances need to be evolved. To a large extent,
accountability can be ensured through open government.
In a sense transparency is the best form of audit.

Corruption
in local governments is to be addressed right at the
beginning. It is felt that decentralised corruption
is more harmful than centralised corruption for it
permeates every part of the society and causes widespread
moral degradation.

Some
of the points, which need attention while designing
accountability mechanisms, are fund utilization, decision-making
process, adherence to procedures and maintenance of
Files and records. Traditional accountability mechanisms
like audit and inspection, if functioning regularly,
can help to a considerable extent. In this respect
Kerala has attempted two innovations - first, setting
up performance auditing teams by pooling surplus staff
in the Panchayat, Municipalities, Rural Development
departments and the Secretariat to conduct regular
auxiliary audit with a view to correcting mistakes
as and when they occur and guiding local governments
in maintaining the proper systems; second, setting
up of a technical audit team consisting of senior
engineers selected for their integrity to investigate
complaints of malfeasance in public works.

In addition
to the Ombudsman new accountability mechanisms have
also come up. Regular IEC campaigns, participatory
structures right from planning up to monitoring, transparency
provisions and scheme formulation framework and spelling
out the due process in various kinds of decision-making,
which fix the rational boundaries to autonomy, are
the important examples.

Reforms
on the anvil relate to semi structured social audit,
insistence of compulsory information giving, publishing
of Citizen entitlements and Charters and use of information
technology.

Another
challenge is to link the banking system with local
government planning. The existing instructions of
RBI are not conducive to a good working relationship
between local governments and banks. State governments
can only play a limited role in this. Yet another
planning issue, which has administrative implications,
is about inter-tier linkages to be brought about in
the Plan preparation as well as Plan implementation
phases.

Kerala
has attempted to address these issues through elaborate
government orders prepared on the basis of feed back
from the field. But the orders require annual modifications
as newer challenges crop up.

VI.
Good governance features.

Government
has to play a conscious role to improve governance
in local governments. Experience shows that it is
relatively easier to introduce good governance features
at the level of the local government. To recapitulate,
some of the good governance features in the Kerala
experiment are -

Transparency
and right to information

Public IEC campaigns

Insistence on due process

Participation in all stages

De-bureaucratization especially in technical matters

Accreditation
of NGOs to act as support agencies for local governments

Giving
opportunities to young professionals to serve as apprentices
in local governments eg: Civil and agricultural engineers,
IT professionals etc.

Recognition
of best practices by selecting Beacon Panchayats

Strengthening
independent umpiring institutions

Introducing
code of conduct for elected representatives and officials

Making
Citizen's Charter compulsory

Revising
office management systems to make them people friendly

Simplification
and modernization using information technology.

VII.
Role of Government

Paradoxical
though it may seem, the role of Government increases
considerably in the early years of decentralisation;
it has to play the role of an activist facilitator.
Decentralization is a process and throws up several
unexpected challenges during its course. The Government
should have the readiness and flexibility to respond
quickly. Some points highlighting the role of the
Government are given below:

1) There
is need for a high power co-ordination system which
allows for fast-track decision-making, both policy
and procedural, in respect of challenges thrown up
by the decentralisation process. In Kerala there is
a Co-ordination Committee under the Chairmanship of
the Minister for Local Self Government which has Secretary
(LSGD), Secretary (Planning), Secretary (Finance),
Secretary (SC/ST), Members of the Planning Board,
Director of Panchayats, Director of Municipal Administration
and Commissioner for Rural Development as Members.
This Committee has the powers of the Government to
take policy decisions on all matters relating to decentralisation
except those involving additional commitments of funds
or those concerning departments not represented in
the Co-ordination Committee. This has enabled the
Government to respond on line to field level problems
and come out with solutions very quickly.

2) Government
has to have a real feel of what is happening on ground.
It has to be open to feed back from formal as well
as informal channels. The most effective form of feedback
is direct interaction with the local governments.
Kerala has been following a gruelling system whereby
the Minister, Secretary and the Head of Department
meet heads of local governments (Village Panchayats
at the District level, Block Panchayats at the regional
level, Municipalities, Corporations and District Panchayats
at the State level) along with the concerned officials
at least once in four months at critical points -
just before formulation of the Annual Plan, midway
through the financial year and towards the end of
the financial year. These meetings serve to clarify
various points of view and help maintain an ongoing
dialogue with the local governments.

3) The
concept of local governments as partners of the government
implies that it is not the department in charge of
local governments', which alone is responsible for
their effective functioning. All departments whose
functions are handled by local governments have to
play an active role with the department for local
self governments playing the nodal role by setting
policies and procedures. Each department is to be
pro- active by issuing operational instructions in
consonance with government policies and the laws and
procedures governing the functioning of local governments.
They have to monitor the performance of local governments
in the discharge of functions related to their sector.

4) When
there is radical decentralisation, the roles and powers
of departmental staff at all levels undergo fundamental
changes. In the case of officers transferred to local
governments, their professional power and responsibility
increases whereas their administrative power decreases
and administrative responsibility remains more or
less the same. These officers need be equipped to
play their new role; for example, the medical officer
of the Primary Health Centre has the difficult task
of being the defacto Secretary (Health) of that Panchayat.
He can no longer be a mere implementer of programmes
but should attain the capability of formulating programmes.

The
Heads of Department and Senior officers under him
who have no formal control over local governments
tend to move out of the sphere of local governments;
this has to be checked. They have certain critical
roles to play like giving feed back to government,
providing project ideas to local governments, giving
the higher order technical inputs to them, laying
down technical standards, motivating the staff of
local governments and so on.

5) There
are several structures particularly at the district
level consisting of officials and non-officials, generally
nominated, discharging functions which have been transferred
to the local governments - like DRDAs, FFDAs, various
societies under Health department etc. These were
constituted at a time when there were no democratic
bodies at the local level. But now they have lost
their relevance. Normally they have two components
- a professional component and a political decision
making component. The latter one has to give way when
democratically elected bodies emerge or else they
can end up as parallel power centres. Ideally the
professional wings should serve the local governments.
Kerala has already abolished DRDAs and is in the process
of restructuring FFDAs/BFDAs. A similar restructuring
of various Committees would be required.

6) The
role of District Collector has traditionally been
pivotal in the functioning of the district administration
both developmental as well as regulatory. Before the
advent of local governments the District Collector
was doing practically all the development functions.
Now the Collector's direct role in development matters
has become quite marginal. At the same time the traditional
strengths of a good Collector's - dynamism, understanding
of development issues, honesty, service-mindedness,
capacity to co-ordinate with various agencies, leadership
in administration, acceptance by people - can be used
to strengthen local governments. Kerala provides a
good example where government could effectively mediate
the change of role of Collector from a direct development
implementer to a co-ordinator for local governments
and a facilitator. The District Collector has been
made the Member Secretary of the District Planning
Committee thereby giving him a potential proactive
role in the development of the district. He co-ordinates
the provision of services to local governments by
various departments. He also acts as government's
interface with local governments particularly to Village
Panchayats, Block Panchayats and the urban local bodies.
This helps him to give valuable feed back to government
on policies, programmes and procedures. And Government
passes down instructions through him.

7) Capacity
building for managing the change is a tremendous administrative
responsibility of the Government. There are so many
persons to be trained both officials and non-officials.
Capacity building has two components - training as
well as providing professional support. In Kerala
for training the institutional frame work of the State
Planning Board and the Kerala Institute of Local Administration
is being used. Sufficient funds are earmarked for
this activity. There is a pool of master trainers
identified from government officials, retired officials
and NGOs who provide a kind of cascading training
to the staff and elected representatives of local
governments. How-to-do handbooks and case studies
of best practice enrich the training process. Professional
support is being provided by tapping barefoot expertise,
non-government sources as well as academic institutions
especially for fresh graduates who could serve the
local governments as apprentices.

The
challenges of capacity building have been made more
formidable by the fact that the reservation-cum-rotation
system results in more new office holders and elected
representatives once in five years. Since the term
of most of them would expire after five years there
has to be an intense bunching of training activities
in the first few months.

8) Genuine
decentralisation demands that there should be a gradual
withdrawal of direct executive control over local
governments. This has to be balanced with the need
for accountability. The best option is to create independent
regulatory institutions or strengthen existing ones.
Kerala has gone considerable ahead in this process
as may be seen from the following list of institutions.

a)
The State Election Commission. The Election Commission
has been given powers, which go beyond those required
for the conduct of elections. It is empowered to delimit
Wards, which were formerly done through the executive
and it has been given powers to disqualify defectors.

b)
The Finance Commission. This has been given the mandate
as required by the Constitution. The first SFC was
constituted in 1994 and the second SFC in 1999.

c)
Ombudsman for Local Governments. This is a high power
institution (it is the name given to an institution
rather than an individual as is the conventional practice)
consisting of seven members - a High Court Judge,
two District Judges, two Secretaries to Government
and two eminent public men selected in consultation
with the Leader of Opposition. This institution has
been given vast powers to check malfeasance in local
governments in the discharge of developmental functions.

d)
Appellate Tribunals. These are to be constituted at
the Regional/District level to take care of appeals
by citizens against decisions of the local government
taken in the exercise of their regulatory role like
issue of licence, grant of permit etc.

e)
Audit Commission. Though this has not yet been legislated
a policy has been taken to set up an Audit Commission,
which would be independent of governmental control
and would function on the lines of Comptroller and
Auditor General of India and would be able to set
its own standards of audit.

f)
State Development Council. This is headed by the Chief
Minister and consists of the entire Cabinet, Leader
of opposition, Vice-Chairman of the State Planning
Board, the Chief Secretary, all the District Panchayat
Presidents who are also Chairperson of District Planning
Committee and representatives of other tiers of local
governments. This institution is expected to take
the lead in policy formulation and in sorting out
operation issues.

As decentralisation
progresses, the attitude of the government towards
the local government has to go through appropriate
phases which has administrative implications. In the
initial days patience and tolerance are highly essential
as several mistakes could be made - some of them bonafide
and a good number of them malafide. Government should
have all eyes and ears to grasp the complexities of
the process. Quickly this should be followed by a
corrective phase where the focus is on helping local
governments to set their house in order. This would
mark the period of stabilization and institutionalization.
Thereafter the regulatory institutions should take
over and have both preventive as well as punitive
systems in place to avoid mal-administration and malfeasance.

VIII.
CONCLUSION

Decentralisation
throws up exciting possibilities for fundamental reforms.
The general atmosphere of change opens up considerable
space for far-reaching administrative reforms. There
is much scope for modernization and possibilities
for introduction of totally new systems and procedures.
Thus decentralisation facilitates reforms from below,
touching practically every sphere of governance.

Even
fiscal reforms are possible. This would include rationalization
of tax collection procedures, ushering in of fiscal
responsibility provisions, introduce of performance-linked
incentive grants, indexation of certain taxes and
non-tax revenues so that they change automatically
and periodically with change of money value and introduction
of electronic budgeting for fiscal discipline, where
every transaction and every modification would get
recorded automatically for future reference.

In order
to push reforms, action research and policy studies
would be very useful. Here again Government has an
active role to play.

-------------------------------------

ANNEXURE
I

"A.
Mandatory functions of Village Panchayats

1. Regulation
of building construction.

2. Protection
of public land from encroachment

3. Protection
of traditional drinking water sources.

4. Presentation
of ponds and other water bodies

5. Maintenance
of water-ways and canals under their charge

6. Collection
and disposal of solid waste and control of liquid
waste disposal.

7. Storm
water drainage

8. Maintenance
of environmental hygiene

9. Management
of markets

10.
Vector control

11.
Regulation of slaughtering of animals and sale of
meat, fish and other perishable food items.

12.
Regulation of eating establishments

13.
Prevention of food adulteration.

14.
Maintenance of roads and other public assets

15.
Street lighting and their maintenance.

16.
Immunisation

17.
Carrying into effect national and State level strategies
and programmes for disease prevention and control.

18.
Opening and maintenance of burial and burning grounds.

19.
Licensing of dangerous and offensive trades

20.
Registration of births and deaths.

21.
Provide bathing and washing ghats

22.
Provide of ferries.

23.
Provide parking space for vehicles

24.
Provide waiting-sheds for travellers

25.
Provide toilet facilities in public places

26.
Regulate conduct of fairs and festivals.

27.
Licensing of pet dogs and destroying stray dogs.

B.
General functions

1. Collection
and updating of essential statistics.

2. Organising
voluntary labour and contribution for community works.

3. Carrying
out campaigns for thrift.

4. Awareness
building on control of social evils like drinking,
consumption of narcotics, dowry and abuse of women
and children.

5. Ensuring
maximum people's participation in all stages of development.

3. Dairy
Development Department - One Dairy Extension Officer
and Auxiliary posts (this unit should be transferred
to one of the Grama Panchayats in the Block and this
should cover all the Grama Panchayats in the block).

5. Rural
Development Department - Two Village Extension Officer
posts (including lady V.E.O) (if it is not possible
to deploy two posts for a Grama Panchayat from a Rural
Development Block one post can be deployed for the
present and additional post can be deployed as and
when necessary subject to availability)

6. Social
Welfare Department - Day care centres and Anganwadis
of the respective places.

12.
General Education Department - Government Lower Primary
Schools of the respective places.

13.
Public Works Department - One Public Works Overseer
post (this post should be given to a Grama Panchayat
in which there are no engineering posts and the incumbent
should work in three similar Grama Panchayats).

9. Co-operation
Department - One post of Assistant Registrar and one
post of Clerk.

10.
Public Works Department - One division consisting
of Executive Engineer and auxiliary staff. (from among
Local Works Division, Special Division, Building Division).

(Later
the District Hospitals were transferred to the District
Panchayats)

NB . Through follow-up government orders, majority
of beneficiary oriented welfare and development schemes
were transferred to the PRIs. Of special interest
is the fact all the centrally-sponsored anti-poverty
programmes including SGSY, IAY, and EAS have been
fully transferred to them. Likewise all the pension/social
assistance Schemes - for the Destitutes and Old aged,
Handicapped, Widows, Agriculture Labourers, Unemployed
- are implemented by the Grama Panchayats.

8. General
Education Department - Government Primary Schools
and High Schools of the respective places.

9. Co-operative
Department - One post of Senior Co-operative Inspector
(this post should be under the Municipal Council of
District Head Quarters and the concerned officer will
attend to the works in all the Municipalities of the
District.)